Shi Bei originally wanted to talk back, but she couldn’t come up with anything on the spot, so she could only offer a dry retort:
“You’re the dark one…”
“Since when?” Kong Lingrou chuckled. “I thought that coming over to help you with your studies whenever I have free time made me a truly gentle, friendly, and helpful person.”
Shi Bei looked away and muttered under her breath, “Drink less mushroom soup.”
On the surface, she maintained her composure, but internally she was completely falling apart.
Praising Kong Lingrou’s character not only betrayed her own dignity, but it was also simultaneously an extraordinarily high-level technical challenge. If she made it too superficial, not only would it lack credibility, but she would also get mocked right back like she was right now…
It would be so much better if Kong Lingrou were just a little dumber, a little more foolish.
“Sis, stop picking on people,” Kong Lingyu said calmly as she turned the page of the lecture notes. “Shi Bei has to go to the hospital tomorrow.”
Shi Bei was startled: “Go to the hospital?”
“You’ve been fractured for a week now, so it’s time for your follow-up exam, Miss Rich Lady.” Kong Lingrou pulled out a sticky note pad and a pen from her bag. “Remember to prepare your things in advance. I’ll come pick you up at ten tomorrow morning.”
Shi Bei looked at the content written on it: “Writing it down for just a single item? Who are you looking down on? I can remember it.”
“You remember it now, but by tomorrow when you wake up and realize you need to bring it, you’ll already be out the door. The sticky note is meant for you to slap on your forehead like a talisman paper to sleep with.”
Shi Bei let out a light scoff and said, “Don’t use your past perceptions to judge the brand-new me today.”
The corners of Kong Lingrou’s lips curled up slightly.
That half-smile, half-mocking arch reappeared directly in Shi Bei’s dream.
She opened her eyes groggily, feeling stifled in her chest and short of breath.
When she stood up, her vision went black for a moment, and she had to take a moment before stepping off the bed.
It was probably because she hadn’t slept long enough.
It was all Kong Lingrou’s fault. If she hadn’t dreamed of that sarcastic, snarky expression of hers, she wouldn’t have woken up early before her alarm even went off.
There was still plenty of time before it was time to leave. After washing up, Shi Bei tossed the sticky note on the desk into a drawer, eating her bread while casting a few glances at the code she had written last night.
Only when it reached a point where she absolutely had to head out did she start packing her things.
She dug out the paper bag provided by the hospital, which contained various receipts and medical slips neatly arranged inside. She couldn’t tell if it had been that neat originally or if Kong Lingrou had already organized it once before handing it to her.
She didn’t really understand the documents, nor did she have time to look through them carefully.
Bringing them all along definitely wouldn’t be wrong!
She hung the paper bag on her crutch. Just as she went to change her shoes, that sticky note suddenly floated into her mind as clearly as an image.
Three Traditional Chinese characters annotated with Japanese pronunciation: Consultation Ticket (診察券)
Such a familiar item. Because Kong Lingrou had instructed her on the very first day not to lose it carelessly, she had taken it out separately and stored it in a box.
She had almost forgotten about it!
A knock suddenly sounded on the door right in front of her.
The sound gave Shi Bei quite a fright.
Collecting herself, she hurriedly called out, “Just a moment! I’m pretty slow at putting on shoes right now!”
She hastily kicked off her shoes and rushed back to her room, tossing the bag filled with a mountain of useless receipts onto the floor. She frantically searched for the consultation ticket that she had specially placed inside a document box, then hurriedly put her shoes back on.
Perhaps because the room was stuffy, her forehead was actually breaking into a sweat after finishing all this.
She opened the door and saw Kong Lingrou waiting quietly outside.
The sunlight slanting into the long corridor fell warmly onto her rice-white cardigan, a few strands of her long hair gently floating in the breeze—relaxed and elegant, looking just like a star shooting a commercial photo spread.
She was completely different from Shi Bei, who was flustered, disheveled, and stepping out the door in a T-shirt crumpled from sleep.
The very first thing Shi Bei did was hand her the consultation ticket, asking, “It’s this one, right? I didn’t get it wrong, did I?”
She then added dryly, “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Why all the panic and rush?”
Shi Bei shook her head: “I wasn’t.”
Kong Lingrou put the item into her bag and said, “From the commotion I heard at the door, I thought you only remembered you forgot something after putting on your shoes, and went scrambling around inside for a long time.”
After a brief silence, Shi Bei quickly squeezed out a smile and said, “How could that be? I prepared it in advance last night.”
In her heart, she thought: As soon as I get home later, I’m going to check whether she secretly installed surveillance cameras in my home.
Then she thought: It’s all the fault of that worn-out floor that creaks if even a ghost drifts across it.
Finally, she analyzed the problem systematically: This thin door that doesn’t prioritize sound insulation at all, looking like a coffin board, is also a problem.
“What should we do now, Bei Bei? Five flights of stairs.” Kong Lingrou looked down at the height of the fifth floor. “Since you said going upstairs was no problem at all, coming down should be super easy, right?”
Shi Bei: “…”
Her ability to hop all the way up had depended entirely on her anxiety about blocking neighbors if she slept on the staircase, and she had taken several breaks along the way while hugging the handrails.
Fortunately, she hadn’t bumped into any neighbors back then, so it had been relatively leisurely.
Unlike now, with a malicious person who loved watching her make a fool of herself standing right beside her.
Without a word, Shi Bei leaned on her crutches to head downstairs.
Going down to the bottom was easier than going up.
After successfully descending an entire floor, she grew increasingly adept at it. Just as she was preparing to pick up the pace, Kong Lingrou, following closely behind her off to the side, issued a cool instruction like a supervisor: “Slower.”
“…Oh.”
Neither of them spoke again.
Descending floor after floor of the spiral staircase almost made her dizzy. Just as she was about to give out, she raised her eyes to look to the side—it was already the second floor.
Finally, she safely reached the bottom before her physical strength was entirely exhausted.
The place she lived in was a standard commoner’s residential area. Among rows upon rows of single-family housing units were interspersed ordinary apartment buildings of varying heights. One could hardly find a single luxury apartment in the surrounding area, and the roads were very narrow.
Shi Bei had assumed there would be a taxi waiting downstairs, but instead, there was only a black imported business van hogging more than half the lane.
Unlike major domestic cities, working-class people in Japan generally bought Japanese cars with low fuel consumption, so this was her first time seeing a luxury car here.
Just as she was about to say that one of her neighbors might have won the lottery and bought a new car before having time to buy a new house…
She suddenly saw the car lights flash.
Kong Lingrou stepped forward, opened the rear passenger door, and asked, “Can you get in by yourself?”
Shi Bei: “…”
“When did you learn to drive?” Following her instructions, Shi Bei slowly slid inside using a sideways translation movement that avoided pulling at her leg as much as possible. “You didn’t use to drive in the past.”
Kong Lingrou looked down at her with a gaze reserved for fools, asking, “Are you saying I didn’t drive back in middle school?”
The car door was pulled shut with a firm, moderate click.
Shi Bei shut her mouth.
Sitting inside the car, she reflected on her scrambled perception of the passage of time; she always blurred the specific locations of many events on the timeline.
Right, the middle school Kong Lingrou hadn’t reached legal age yet.
She was completely different from the current Kong Lingrou.
After Kong Lingrou got into the car, she first handed over a paper bag from the passenger seat. “Eat some breakfast.”
Shi Bei took it subconsciously into her hands.
The paper bag was still warm.
“It’s fine if you eat in the car; I’ll send it for a car wash before returning it anyway.” While observing her surroundings to reverse the vehicle, Kong Lingrou said, “Once we reach the hospital later, first…”
Shi Bei couldn’t help interrupting out of curiosity: “Is this car not yours?”
“Borrowed it from a friend.”
Holding the breakfast Kong Lingrou had bought her, Shi Bei had a slightly dazed look on her face.
This was yet another place where she was completely different: “Given your past germaphobia, it would have been completely impossible for you to drive someone else’s car.”
Kong Lingrou didn’t answer. She focused her attention on driving the unfamiliar, oversized vehicle, turning it around and driving it out from the ridiculously narrow alleyway.
Shi Bei waited a bit, then turned her head to inspect the interior decorations of the car.
She saw no personal ornaments whatsoever—a very clean business vehicle.
The curtains in the back seat were drawn, letting not a single ray of light leak through.
It was easy to guess that the owner of this low-profile yet extremely expensive celebrity van was, in high probability, the star classmate Kong Lingrou had gotten to know in high school.
She was the only person in the back seat, with a spacious area where lying down wouldn’t even be a problem, yet for some reason it felt a bit stuffy.
The paper bag she held in her hands grew hotter and hotter as well.
Once the car reached the main road, Kong Lingrou continued delivering the instructions she hadn’t finished earlier:
“Later, we’ll go get an X-ray to confirm that the initially fixed fracture ends haven’t displaced. If things look good, you’ll need to start going back to school next week. If your attendance rate stays low, things will get a bit troublesome later on.”
Shi Bei listened quietly.
“If the recovery isn’t going well, you’ll stay in the hospital for a period of time.” Kong Lingrou glanced at her expression through the rearview mirror. “A single-patient suite happens to have freed up recently.”
“Oh,” Shi Bei responded offhandedly. Placing the paper bag on her lap, she pulled out a warm drink, took a small sip, and set it back down.
Unwrapping the white paper packaging, it turned out to be her childhood favorite: mille-feuille pastry.
No wonder she said it would drop crumbs.
This was something that she would always scatter all over the table and floor whenever she ate it, no matter how carefully and earnestly she leaned into the bag while eating.
Back then, the bakery in the school cafeteria used to sell it. Mindful of Kong Lingrou’s germaphobia and afraid that rustling crumbs falling onto the floor would make her unhappy, she only ever dared to eat it in the cafeteria.
The first time she ate it in the dormitory was when Kong Lingrou had packaged it and brought it back for her.
Perhaps a fractured leg was also a form of illness, and sick people were always prone to fragile emotions. Shi Bei lowered her face, staring at the paper bag resting on her lap for a while, as the rims of her eyes inexplicably began to burn hot.
There weren’t too many people driving in downtown Tokyo, and the roads during non-peak hours were smooth and clear of traffic.
Soon, they entered the private hospital’s parking lot.
“Stay seated. I’ll go push a wheelchair over.”
Shi Bei felt her condition wasn’t that severe: “I can walk by myself. I brought my crutches.”
Kong Lingrou stepped out of the car and walked around to the back seat to look at her.
“Then take two steps and let me see.”
Using her crutches, Shi Bei forcefully shuffled over to the car door.
The moment she applied force to stand up, the phone in her pocket slipped out first, flying a meter away at a tricky angle.
“…”
Kong Lingrou sighed, going over to help her pick it up and inspect the screen.
While watching Shi Bei get out of the car using her crutches, she pulled a disinfectant wipe out of her bag and wiped down the phone that had caught some dust. After a few wipes with the wet tissue, the screen suddenly unlocked.
Someone with no secrets in her phone didn’t even bother setting a passcode.
Kong Lingrou didn’t feel surprised.
She switched to a dry paper towel to wipe it again, and after wiping it clean, she placed it in her pocket first.
Shi Bei could indeed walk a few steps with her crutches.
However, the thought of having to go to school on crutches made her mood sink.
Going to school meant squeezing onto trains, and getting to the train station required navigating a concrete staircase with both an uphill and downhill slope—doing that back and forth would truly take half her life away.
“If there are no problems with the follow-up exam, do you want to stay at my place for a while?” Walking beside her, Kong Lingrou spoke in a very ordinary tone, “The apartment building I live in has wheelchairs; borrowing and returning them is very convenient.”
Shi Bei’s heart stirred, her thoughts suddenly leaping back to the sweet cup of coffee she had drunk earlier, as well as the deliciously sweet mille-feuille pastry.
The crispy, delicious sensation only bloomed in her heart at this very moment.
“The nurse might push you to get the X-ray later, and they might not let me follow along.”
“Ah?” Shi Bei snapped back to reality instantly. “But I still can’t understand much Japanese.”
Kong Lingrou pulled out Shi Bei’s phone.
She had originally intended to dial her own number, then set her number as a registered contact on her phone.
However, after entering a few digits into the dial pad, no matching saved contact popped up.
Kong Lingrou’s movement paused, and she suddenly realized something.
“…”
Shi Bei looked on quizzically as she held her phone and typed for a long time, only to clear it all out inexplicably.
The phone was also stuffed back into her hands.
“I’ll have them push you back down after taking you through the exam.” Kong Lingrou smiled slightly and said, “I’ll wait for you directly in the parking lot in a bit.”
Shi Bei keenly sensed that she had gotten angry.
However, she was a person with very slow reaction times. Even as the elevator doors opened, she was still pondering whether she had actually remembered that she liked eating mille-feuille pastry, or if she had simply bought a random breakfast.
She watched Kong Lingrou go over to speak with the nurse at the reception desk.
Two nurses were wheeling a wheelchair over toward her.
After finishing her conversation with the nurses, Kong Lingrou felt her phone vibrating.
While taking out her phone, she walked toward Shi Bei’s direction first.
She saw Shi Bei waving the phone screen at her, which was currently dialing a number.
In the lobby where medical staff and patients moved back and forth continuously, Shi Bei stood alone in the corner leaning on her crutches, her gaze holding a puppy-like purity and clarity.
Who knew why she didn’t go sit down to wait.
Even though Kong Lingrou knew full well in her heart that Shi Bei was an independent person to the point of being heartless, she would still occasionally be fooled by the out-of-place gloominess Shi Bei exuded in her surroundings, and by those pair of eyes that were always gazing at herself.
Mistakenly believing that she needed her very much.
“What’s wrong?” Kong Lingrou walked over in front of her.
Shi Bei carefully examined her expression and asked, “Did you get angry just now? Is it because I didn’t save your phone number?”